Error drives up cost of new Lode jail site

SAN ANDREAS - An architect's error this week added almost $300,000 to the cost of the new Calaveras County Jail and Sheriff's Office administration building under construction in San Andreas.

Dana M. Nichols

SAN ANDREAS - An architect's error this week added almost $300,000 to the cost of the new Calaveras County Jail and Sheriff's Office administration building under construction in San Andreas.

The $282,287 cost to purchase 62 fire smoke dampers was just part of a $444,744 change order the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors approved on a unanimous vote Tuesday. The other $162,457 was for costs to drill, blast and remove hard rock unexpectedly encountered during excavation for utilities under a roadway.

Joe Kelly, a Calaveras County resident who regularly attends Board of Supervisors meetings and monitors county spending, asked how it was possible the fire smoke dampers were not specified in bid documents.

Project managers said that in fact, the California State Fire Marshal's Office had reviewed the new jail plans before bidding and had required a number of changes, including fire wall improvements that included the dampers.

But while most of the fire wall improvements were included in bid documents, the dampers were inadvertently left out, said Michael Justice, an architect with PSA Dewberry, the firm that drew the plans.

"The fire smoke dampers was a miss," Justice told the Board of Supervisors.

When the error was caught later in the process, it initially looked like it would cost as much as $531,489 to add the dampers. Rod Rhodes of Kitchell, the firm managing the construction, said project officials were able to negotiate that down to $282,287.

Rhodes said that with the most recent change orders, project managers have spent $1.2 million, or about 57 percent of the contingency fund. The project was 67 percent complete as of Jan. 31 and is scheduled to be done this summer.

The $59 million project will create a 160-bed jail and a modern administration building.

They will replace the antiquated 65-bed jail and cramped headquarters the Sheriff's Office has occupied since the early 1960s.